Not Just another Architecture Blog

Tag: Office Building

Italian Architect based in Florence owning a design firm called “Infinity Design”

Honors at Faculty of Architecture in Florence University

Taught as faculty in the same and in structural engineering department

Awarded PhD Honoris causa by the Prodeo Institute at Columbia University (NY)

Not a traditional architect as he worked mainly in the field of construction redefining the technical and technological extremes of building

Involved in restoration of ancient buildings

Pioneer in the field of prefabrication and dynamic buildings

ARCHITECTURE IS TECHNOLOGY:

Since the beginning, with his involvement in “Binishells” technology, David Fisher’s design studio has developed a vision of architecture resulting from technological and economic considerations, with aesthetics being the natural output of the above.

ARCHITECTURE IS FEASIBILITY:

Since the first large project, “the Marriott Aruba” , Dr. Fisher has taken part in the complete process of construction, from the feasibility study, to financing, to construction management and the final commissioning of the project.

ARCHITECTURE IS FUNCTIONALITY:

For David Fisher Architecture is the space for living and the life of the people must not be conditioned by an architect’s extravagance.

Infinity Design gives puts a strong focus on the flexibility of the space as life, architecture must change together with the needs of the people and the changes of the environmental conditions.

PREFABRICATION:

3,800 B.C. – Ancient Egyptians built the pyramids and buildings until now are based on gravity: stones/bricks/blocks are positioned one on top of the other.

1889 – The first iron structure, the Eiffel Tower, was built in Paris . Many skyscrapers are built of bolted steel traces, based on the same technology.

1905 – Reinforced concrete was created by combining cement with iron bars; most structures until now are made of reinforced concrete.

2008 — Prefabrication when 90% of building (Dynamic Tower) was prefabricated including the preassembled cores

“Almost every product used today is the result of an industrial process and can be transported around the world, from cars and boats to computers and clothing. Factories are chosen for their ready access to materials, production technology, inexpensive labor, efficiency, and other conditions that result in high quality at a relatively low cost.

It is unbelievable that real estate and construction, which is the leading sector of the world economy, is also the most primitive. For example, most workers throughout the world still regularly use trowels, which were first used by the Egyptians and then by the Romans. Buildings should be no different from any other .product,. and from now on they will be manufactured in a production facility”– Dr David Fisher

“Doing buildings on site, as we do since the pyramids, is as if we were producing cars in the parking lot or an aircraft on the runway…

Our building in fact are made of preassembled units, that arrive to the site completed of all finishing, equipment, plumbing and air conditioning, ready for a fast and easy installation process.

So these buildings are feasible.

I mentioned functionality — well, also the interior partition will be flexible if they will ever exist… look how flexible is our digital part of life. . . why should we still live in a medieval castle where the wall do not let us any freedom and we can modify them when our way of life get changed.”–Dr. David Fisher

REDEFINING DYNAMIC ARCHITECTURE:

Dynamic Architecture buildings keep modifying their shape

Traditional architecture – Gravity

Dynamic architecture – Motion dynamics

A mechanical approach to civil construction – Transdisciplinary

Buildings will no more remain the ‘fossilized imagination’ of the architect;

They will change, constantly bringing new views and experiences to us with time

Introducing the fourth dimension in architecture : TIME

Suite Vollard:

The Suite Vollard is a futuristic residential building in Curitiba, Parana, Brazil.

This Apartment Building was Designed by a team of Architects, headed by Bruno de Franco & David Fisher

This building is the only one of its kind in the world, as each of the 11 apartments can rotate 360º.

Each apartment can spin individually in any direction. One rotation takes a full hour.

The apartment rings rotate around a static core used for building services, utilities, and all areas which require plumbing.

Each apartment was sold for approximately R$ 400,000.00 ($US 300,000.00).

The Rotating Tower:

80 floors, 420 meters tall.

First 20 floors will be Offices.

Floors 21 to 35 will be a Luxury hotel,

Floors 36 to 70 will be Apartments.

While the top 10 floors will be luxury Villas.

Apartment sizes range from 124 sq.m to villa of size 1200 sq.m

It will be the first building in the World to be entirely constructed from factory made prefabricated parts.

These parts are being manufactured in a factory in Altamura, Italy.

It will require just 600 people in the assembly facility and 80 technicians on the site instead of min. 2000 workers for a similar building.•the consturction will complete by the end of this year.

“The Rotating Tower Of Dubai will be the First Industrial Skyscraper ever constructed. 90% of the building will be prefabricated and assembled on a central core, the only part built with traditional reinforced concrete poured on the site.”

“I call the non-moving buildings Tombstones……buildings should start being part of the universe, and therefore dynamic….. How could one think that digital homes of future will be as immobile as our grandmother’s house.”

The house is situated in the midst of meadows and trees on a large natural plot.

Principle of minimalism

Floods and insects were main problems tackled

A vacation residence for a doctor

One enters the home by climbing a low, broad set of stairs to a sparse deck, then another, similar set of stairs to the outdoor porch

CASE STUDY THREE:Seagram Building, New York, 1954-58:

General features:

The Seagram Building is a skyscraper in New York City

In collaboration with the American Philip Johnson

It is 516 feet tall with 38 stories

It stands as one of the finest examples of the functionalist aesthetic and a masterpiece of corporate modernism

“I remember seeing many old buildings in my hometown when I was young. Few of them were important buildings. They were mostly very simple, but very clear. I was impressed by the strength of these buildings because they did not belong to any epoch. They had been built there for over a thousand years and were still impressive and nothing could change that. All great styles passed, but…they were still as good as on the day they were built.” – Mies Van Der Rohe.

CASE STUDY 4:S.R.CROWN HALL

General details:

S. R. Crown Hall is generally considered to be one of Mies’ greatest works

Mies considered Crown the clearest statement of his philosophy of a universal space building.

Crown is home to IIT’s College of Architecture; inside the building, free-standing partitions suggest spaces for studios and exhibition.

the building houses the architecture school

The wings to the east and west. It is a Upper Core is organized about an axis that runs north/south, with no Permanent partitions or formal separation of spaces. The building itself is organized on two floors, with the main floor raised about 6 feet above grade to allow natural light and ventilation into the lower level through clerestory windows.

creating symmetrical single open hall

oak-wood partitions

Built of hollow clay tile, the chases are finished in plaster painted white.

Like this:

Definitely a celebrity architect, at the opening of the Prada stores of his design in New York and Los Angeles, he was a recognizable figure

Former journalist and screenwriter who studied architecture at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London

“Professor in Practice of Architecture and Urban Design” at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design

In 1975 Koolhaas along with some other architects founded the OMA (Office for Metropolitan Architecture), dedicated to finding “new synergies” between architecture and contemporary culture

In 2005, he co-founded ‘Volume Magazine’ together with Mark Wigley and Ole Bouman.

Awards:

Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate for the year 2000

TIME Magazine Best Architecture for 2004 (Seattle Central Library)

RIBA Gold Medal (2004).

In 2005 Rem Koolhaas received the Mies van der Rohe Award for the Netherlands Embassy, Berlin

A Visionary Architect:

From the Pritzker Prize Jurors:

Rem Koolhaas is that rare combination of visionary and implementer —philosopher and pragmatist — theorist and prophet — an architect whose ideas about buildings and urban planning made him one of the most discussed contemporary architects in the world even before any of his design projects came to fruition.

He is not a formalist, yet he creates form. He is not a functionalist, yet programs are the generators of his solutions; he is not a theoretician, yet ideas dominate his work.

Design Philosophy

Boldly produces buildings that differ visually to their surroundings

Celebrates the “chance-like” nature of city

Interrogated the “Program“ to oppose the notion “ an act to edit function and human activities “ as the pretext of architectural design

His work emphatically embraces the contradictions of two disciplines- architecture and urban design

Like this:

Biography: Jean Nouvel was born in 1945 in Fumel, France. He has been working as an architect since 1975, mainly in France, Germany and Japan.

1972 – diploma from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts

1975 – opens his first architectural studio

1981 – wins competition for a series of large-scale projects proposed by President Francois Mitterrand

1988 – forms a partnership with Swiss architect Emmanuel Cattani

1991 – becomes vice-president of the Institut Frençais d’Architecure

1993 – named Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Architects

Design Philosophy: “ For me, architecture is a modification. A little modification of a landscape, a part of a city, a complement to other buildings, a testimony of an epoch and so on. It’s not a kind of sculpture. “

– sensitivity to context – cultural, geographical or architectural.

– more dynamic and lively architecture.

“My research is always around the idea of specificity and I don’t like to repeat the same vocabulary or to do the same architecture on every spot on the earth.”

Program: 142 m highrise for the registered office of the company Aigües de Barcelona (AGBAR) + auditorium of 350 places

Client: Layetana Inmuebles S.L.

Architects: AJN and b720 (Barcelona Architectural studio)

Structure: Obiols/Brufau

Builder: Dragados/Axima/Emte

Architect/Lobby/Top Management: b720 advised by AJN

Project Management: Master Igeneria

General Management: Agbar Servicios Compartidos

Location: Its Key strategic position ensures easy access and proximity to the most important and emblematic places in the city The origin: Inspired by the architectural legacy of Montserrat, the Agbar Tower rises from the ground with the power and lightness of a geyser. Use of 81000 LEDs to produce 16 million colours Bioclimatic Architecture

Regulation of air flow

Use of sunlight through building’s orientation

Energy Efficient

Use of insulating, recyclable and non-contaminating materials.

Use of Renewable Energy sources in design.

Air Flow:

8500 windows designed to achieve natural ventilation.

Double glazing

Materials & Energy Efficiency:

No material is used that contains formaldehyde, asbestos or lead.

Optimization of elevator routes using a computer system to avoid unnecessary consumption and ensure service for people with special needs.

Average solar heat gain : 25.11 %.

Natural Heating and Ventilation through louvers.

Temperature sensors on external façade.

Use of sunlight:Fritted Louvers

provide partial shade to the building’s surface, and

create a ventilation space that allows heat to rise and escape before reaching the thermal envelope behind.

A Business Tower

It announces the location of the new barcelona business centre like a lighthouse attracting businesses for the immediate future.

At the doors of the new business district 22 in Barcelona.

Priviledged work environment with singular prestige.

Office Spaces:

Column free spaces

Free height 2.6m

Encapsulated technical floor

1500kg/m² load bearing steel false ceiling.

Embedded sprinklers and lights

Modular furniture

One kitchen per floor

Building Characteristics:

28 floors : Office Use

03 floors : Refugee floors

01 floor : Cafeteria

01 floor : Multipurpose Room

01 floor : Panoramic View

8 Elevators +

1 Service Elevator +

02 floors : Auditorium + Services

02 floors : Parking

Interior Design

The interior design is based on the energy and colour of its exterior skin

He gives credence to the basic tenet that there is no such thing as an original idea but that everything original is based on the reworking of what already exists.

One very strong influence on the work of graves is the interest in & appreciation of; the simple domestic rituals of life that one enjoys or ought to be able to enjoy, despite the speed at which technology is rustling us into the cyber space.

Japan travel:

Graves has been steadily developing his practice in Japan for the last 15 years.

He explains that Japan has “become a place to experiment a bit with abstraction. In Europe & America I’m probably a bit more conscious of historic context”. Because so often the cities we’ve been asked to design for there are completely rebuilt.

In Japan graves architecture was seen as ‘humanistic’ rather than ‘mechanistic’ i.e. In terms of materials & the anthropometric qualities of the building. He used man as the metaphor rather than the machine

Philosophy:

Grave’s language of architecture operates on a number of levels. It is meant to be legible & a part of everyday life.

Secondly, & certainly no less important although admittedly more understandable to the trained eye, is a passionate & sometimes playful interest in reworking the commonly accepted language of architecture into a uniquely personal expression of what it might become, without losing its identity.

The reworking of what exists into what is unknown but still recognizable is the goal.

Grave’s practice is practice in the literal sense of the word. He is constantly practicing the rules & principles of architecture.

He desires to create a pleasant, comfortable environment for the people in his building.

His continually evolving experimentation with architectural form & language at the level of abstraction & figuration, scale & color, size & structural system is such that, there is emergence of new ideas without denying existence of traditions.

Architectural style:

Graves has been an architect who is not simply concerned with formal manipulation a self- referential language but is equally occupied with a building’s significance with time & place.

He designs building in a near-populist attitude, so that non architects can recognize distinct architectural elements within their compositions & relate them in scale to their own bodies.

His early projects reveal distinct references to the environment that the buildings are a part of:-

a curve referring to the clouds above.

A mural expanding the perspective of a room.

a yellow rail referring to the sun

a terracotta base suggesting grounding in the earth.

GRAVES STYLE IN 1980

Graves strategy has been “to internalize the events of the building”, identifying particular components of the program that can be given formal emphasis. The result is that these large complexes become cities into themselves, self contained by somewhat inward looking.

Whether the emphasis of the building is primarily horizontal or vertical, a hierarchial route is established through the repetitive spaces.

Relationship b/w indoors or outdoors by “pushing the wall as far out as it can get to make a bay window that grabs the light” e.G. Humana building or by carving something out of the face of the building so people can literally go outside, e.g Tazima building.

Architectural details:

Built form

Influenced by the roman style, Graves tried to create grand interior spaces but broken down to human scale.

Cubical facades treated in the classical three part division or tripartite form with the base, shaft & cornice.

In later projects, the strict form of the cube is broken.

WINDOWS:

It forms the basic element as surface texture, due to their proportion & repetition.

Façade:

Uses column as surface treatment & defining the cornice or the head of the building & entrance.

These elements combine to form a pattern of tiled roofs which are grouped in casual meandering pattern, creating a pathway along which the visitors progresses towards the centrality of the water court

Philosophy:

Successfully shows the life of Gandhiji

Minimalist architecture

Material honesty

Contemporary architecture

Glow of spaces

JEEWAN BHARTI , DELHI

This office complex of LIC is situated on the outer road of Connaught circle and acts as a pivot between the colonnades of CP and new generation of high rise towers that now surround it . Thus the building is both a proscenium and a backdrop: a 12 storey stage set whose faceted glass surface reflects the buildings and trees around CP.

Two lower levels of the complex consists of shopping decks and restaurants while upper level are offices located in two separate wings . A pergola connects the two buildings .

A city proposal for an elevated pedestrian walkways if constructed will pass through the two blocks , allowing pedestrians to traverse the building as the great darwaza ie gateway defined by a portico form.

Charles Correa:

Education

1946-1948 inter-science. St. Xavier’s college, university of Bombay

1949-1955 B.Arch., University of Michigan.

1953-1955 M.Arch., Massachusetts institute of technology.

Professional Experience

1955-1958 partner with G.M. BHUTA associates

1958- to date in private practice.

1964-1965 prepared master plan proposing twin city across the harbor from Bombay.

1969-1971 invited by the govt. of Peru

1971-1975 chief architect to CIDCO

1975-1976 consultant to UN secretory-general for HABITAT

1975-1983 Chairman Housing Urban Renewal & Ecology Board

1985 chairman dharavavi palnning commision

About him:

Born into a middle-class Catholic family in Bombay

Became fascinated with the principles of design as a child

At Michigan two professors who influenced him the most – Walter Salders and Buckminister Fuller.

Kevin lynch , then in the process of developing his themes for image of the city triggered Correa’s interest in urban issues

‘India of those days was a different place, it was a brand-new country, there was so much hope; India stimulated me.’

Architect, planner, activist and theoretician, an international lecturer and traveler.

Correa’s work in India shows a careful development, understanding and adaptation of Modernism to a non-western culture. Correa’s early works attempt to explore a local vernacular within a modern environment. Correa’s land-use planning and community projects continually try to go beyond typical solutions to third world problems.

India’s first man of architecture has a very simple philosophy: “Unless you believe in what you do, it becomes … boring,”

AWARDS:

1961 Prize for low-income housing early

1972 Correa was awarded the PadmaShri by the President of India

1980 Correa was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Michigan

1984 He was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Institute of British Architects

1985 Prize for the Improvement in the Quality of Human

Settlements from the International Union of Architects.

1986 Chicago Architecture Award.

1987 the Gold Medal of the Indian Institute of Architects

1990 the Gold Medal of the UIA (International Union of Architects)

1994 the Premium Imperial from Japan society of art.

1999 Aga khan award for vidhan sabha, bhopal

Diversity

In Bombay – Salvacao Church at Dadar ; Kanchanjunga Apartments

In Goa for the Cidade de Goa Hotel and the Kala Academy,

In Ahmedabad – Gandhi Smarak Sangrahalaya ; Ramkrishna House

Delhi – The LIC Centre; British Council Building

Kerala – Kovalam Beach Resort Hotel

Andamans – Bay Island Hotel in Port Blair

Architectural utility and grandeur spread over the subcontinent

Principles

Few cardinal principles in his vast body of work;

incrementality

pluralism

participation

income generation

equity

open-to-sky space

disaggregation.

Belapur housing being the one project where he has literally used these principals

Correa and Corbusier

Like most architects of his generation he has been influenced by Le Corbusier , but by his response to the Mediterranean sun with his grand sculptural decisions he believes that Corbusier’s influence in the colder climates has not been beneficial because these heroic gestures had to withdraw into defensible space, into mechanically heated (and cooled) interiors of the building.

On way back to Bombay in 1955 – saw the Jaoul House (le Corbusier) in Paris under construction

‘I was absolutely knocked out . It was a whole new world way beyond anything being taught in America at that time .then I saw Chandigarh and his buildings in Ahmedabad . They seemed the only way to build.”

Correa and Gandhi

Gandhi’s goal for an independent India had been a village model, non-industrial, its architecture simple and traditional

In these early works Correa demonstrates uncompromising execution of an idea as a powerful statement of form

Master of Arts in Environmental Design from the University of Washington

Nearly 35 years of architectural and planning experience, specializing in high-density, urban infill and mixed-use buildings.

A Big Science Experiment

Goal : Green + occupant comfort +aesthetic

No HVAC !!!

Courtyard concept + Hi-Tech for natural ventilation

Revisiting History and Reinventing it

LEED Ratings: CI Version 2 :Platinum CS : Gold

Features

WATER EFFICIENCY

low-flow fixtures

waterless urinals

30% water saved during everyday operation.

ENERGY AND ATMOSPHERE

Minimizing need for artificial lighting , through building design and windows layout.

Lighting is controlled by daylight and occupancy sensors and set on timers to efficiently measure and deliver light. These strategies allow us to reduce the wattage/sq ft to 35% below the base line of one watt/sq ft.

Restrained use of materials– The exposed structure of the building minimizes the use of additional finish materials. Interior materials were limited only to what is functional to express building systems, promote airflow and reduce future material waste. There are no materials that do not contribute to the building’s overall performance.

Material’s sourcing– Flooring from the existing demolished building was creatively reused as an art piece in Reception Space. Wood siding left over from the construction of the core & shell building was reused as windowsills throughout the office space.

Recycling – A recycling program that is easily accessible involves collection and sorting of all recycled materials including composting.

INDOOR ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY

Thermal comfort

Day lighting

Fresh air

The circulation paths – along the glass on the outside and on the courtyard. mitigates extremes in light, temperature and solar gain, and optimizes ventilation at the workstations. Operable windows, sunshades and perimeter radiant heating allow individuals to control the temperature of their space. Workstations have a maximum height of 42″ to allow all employees to have direct outside views. Indirect light minimizes glare and provides soft, even lighting, while high efficiency task lights provide individual control of light levels on the work surfaces. Predominantly light colors are used (white walls, white furnishings, white work surfaces, and light colored partitions) to enhance day lighting. CO2 sensors throughout the offices control exterior louvers delivering fresh air into the space. Adhesives, sealants, paints, coatings and primers are low VOC (including furniture)